Disclosed are techniques for performing a low-impact firmware update to a first microcontroller. In an aspect, a security entity communicatively coupled to the first microcontroller receives an update to firmware of the first microcontroller, authenticates the update to the firmware of the first microcontroller to prevent a security-related rollback, offloads system management tasks and interrupt handling from the first microcontroller to at least a second microcontroller communicatively coupled to the first microcontroller, coordinates installation of the update to the firmware of the first microcontroller without taking processing cycles from host software, and restores, to the first microcontroller, system management states occurring after the system management tasks and interrupt handling are offloaded from the first microcontroller.
Legal claims defining the scope of protection, as filed with the USPTO.
9. The method of claim 1, wherein the security entity is the second microcontroller.
17. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the security entity is the second microcontroller.
20. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the apparatus is the second microcontroller.
Cooperative Patent Classification codes for this invention. Click any code to explore related patents in that topic.
June 29, 2022
May 7, 2024
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